The only historical fact listed on the Hotel Riverview’s web site is that the Titanic crew stayed there during the inquiry into that disaster (“detained” is how they phrase it, making it sound like the place was being used as a prison”). (The Chelsea Hotel housed some of the Titanic survivors as well.) But until just recently you could get a single room there for only $30.47 per night, plus hotel tax and a $5 key deposit. If you were willing to splurge you could get a room with a TV 
for $32.90. All that is set to end—along with, eventually, all semblance of affordable housing in Manhattan--now that hoteliers Eric Goode and Sean MacPherson have bought the place. So if you were thinking of moving there after you get kicked out of the Chelsea, think again, hapless Bohemian! The Riverview will be a boutique hotel as well!
The apparent lack of history is telling. Because the Riverview, on Jane Street in the West Village, is not so famous as the Chelsea (The building was originally the Seamen's Institute of the American Seamen's Friend Society) the scoundrels who bought the place are apparently moving full speed ahead to evict the long term tenants and discharge the hotel staff. (This is reported in Hotel Chatter, though someone wrote in to say they may keep some staff.) Whereas the media and public reacted with outrage at the possibility of a similar fate for the Chelsea, at the Riverview there will be no such relief in store.
(I can add a little bit more to the Riverview’s history. In addition to playing host to any number of penniless writers and artists, the Riverview has a less tenuous connection to the arts: it’s the former home of the Jane Street Theatre. I saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch there, and also Eddie Izzard—a former Chelsea Hotel resident back in the 90s.)
Oh, did I mention that Goode and MacPherson are associated with BD partners Richard Born and Ira Drukier? The fearsome foursome joined fiendish forces to bring us the nauseating Maritime Hotel in the Meat Packing District. -- Ed Hamilton
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